The Future of Gaming, Digital Ownership, AI, and Leadership with Arron Goolsbey

You're listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer, Dr. Wayne Pernell.

Welcome to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm your host, Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, and your coach on this journey. Today's guest is Aaron Goolsby. He's the president and COO of Mythical Games and a seasoned operator who's helped scale some of the most influential platforms in gaming, from Wizards of the Coast to Activision Blizzard to Meta. With nearly 3 decades at the intersection of technology, entertainment, and digital economies, Aaron is now helping build what many see as the next evolution of the internet through interactive player-owned experiences. In this conversation, we'll explore leadership at scale, the future of Web3 gaming, and why AI won't replace creativity, it will amplify it. Welcome to One Sharp Sword, Aaron, Aaron Goolsby.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks a lot. You know, I would start out by just saying, you know, it's exciting to be here. It's exciting to be talking about what's happening in the world right now. You know, some of the work that I've been doing over at Mythical Games is building the live gaming ecosystem of the future of the internet in real time. You know, we operate first-party sports titles, things like a digital asset marketplace, a wallet platform, you know, all the while reducing burn and pushing towards, you know, real commercial-grade success and flywheel moment that we think that the next version of the internet is ushering in right now. So it's not theoretical, it's live. We have, you know, real systems in place that are kind of showing the potential as real opportunity. And, you know, players are loving it and it's generating real revenue, real business line for us.

It's, uh, it is an amazing edge to be on because, you know, the, the, the buzz that I've got is, oh no, you know, player-owned, that means they just want your money, versus player-owned means you're owning a digital asset, right? So there's this— I, I know you've heard that Right out there. So what are you hearing and how do you combat that kind of— wow, I launched in with kind of a grrr kind of thing, but it's what's out there. It's what's buzzing around. So let's talk about it. Let's just jump right in and talk about it.

Yeah, the idea of player-owned economies, I know it sometimes gets confused with crypto gaming or blockchain gaming or some of these other labels. And I'm here to say that while a lot of the technology that enables this kind of, you know, new sovereignty over your ability to own the experiences that you have inside of gaming and interactive entertainment, they're not the same thing. We're using blockchain technology for sure. However, the notion of player-owned economies and digital object ownership has been a concept inside of gaming for decades. I worked on one of the very first digital object trading card games systems where you, you know, players owned their objects. And that was Magic Online, and that was launched back in 2002. I worked on that as one of the people that helped launch that game. And, you know, and it's, it's still running to this day. It's, uh, it, it helped open this door of, uh, an opportunity to see that gaming is more than just going to the movies. Uh, you know how you go to the movies, it's sort of a consumption model, right? You You show up to the movie, you pay for the movie ticket, you buy some popcorn, you go with some friends or family, you enjoy the movie. Hopefully it was a great movie. And then when you leave, all that you have left is your memory, right? That's all that you have left. This idea of digital ownership of the objects and rewards and achievements that you've had inside of your gaming experience is meant to make that shift from a consumption-based model to, you know, what economists would call a consumer durable model, meaning I don't just walk away with the memories. I certainly have those memories, but I, I own the sword that, you know, I used. It was part of the world's first dungeon crawl, uh, you know, in my favorite game. Like, I own that sword, and, and that sword is unique, and there is only one of them. Like, I used it in that match. It's verifiably unique. It's meaningful to me. Perhaps its value in the game has increased because that was the sword, the famous sword, you know, and that when I'm done playing that game, which is, you know, an inevitable part of this hobby that I've enjoyed for most of my life, and I now have something that I can either keep and cherish, or perhaps I can find someone else who would rather use that sword, who is in a different phase of their own journey of playing the game, and, and they would find value in it, and, and I can actually sell it to them and, and they can use it. And it perpetuates the engagement model inside of a game by a significant amount. Um, we've seen that, you know, in trading card games that were invented at Wizards of the Coast like decades ago. Uh, you know, that, that game was specifically designed to create objects of value inside the game that you could trade with your friends. I mean, that's the whole notion of it. Um, our take on it at Mythical is, why is that only limited to trading cards? Like, why is that only limited to that category of games? And, and so this technology, this capability, unlocks it for all categories. And we've seen that. We've focused a lot on, uh, on sports franchise titles, uh, like FIFA Rivals, for example, is the title that's out, and we're headed towards the World Cup on that. But But we went all the way on the other side. It's like Magic is like high fantasy. There's some science fiction games that also offer some of this type of capability. But we went all the way over to sports and said, you know, sports has long been about players and trading and achievement. So we've proven that very successful model. And I can say that players enjoy it because it's more than just a memory for them. And it's a good business model. It's good for the developers. It's good for the creators. We've seen upwards to 25 to 35% lift on traditional primary sales spending in a game because that secondary market and those digital objects continue to have value and can be traded and bought and sold between players. So it's good for everybody. And we think that that's part of the future of the next version of the internet and of interactive entertainment.

I think it's the next version for sure because We are headed, and I'm not an expert in the digital world. What I can say is I know that we're headed toward more and more and more and more digital engagement. And it just makes sense that a digital object has monetary value, right? That you're just, you hold this object and it is held Specifically, it's not like a concept or a paper or a book that can be, you know, digitally downloaded multiple times. You've got a very specific imprint or almost like a serial number assigned to each object, right?

Well, that's exactly what it is. It's a, it's a, you know, it's a cryptographically sealed serial number on a chain that is publicly verifiable. So no central, no central company decides when or if you own that.

You—

it exists in the world thanks to blockchain technology. That's the, that's the reason we use blockchain technology to do this. We view, we view the next version of interactive entertainment as operating best inside of what we call the open garden, which is we all talk about closed gardens, walled gardens, if you will. The next version is an open garden, meaning it's not just do anything you want all the time because that gets quite messy, but it is a curated experience to some extent, but one that's not centrally controlled.

Talk more about that. So, open garden, the way I would conceive of that is that you have a gathering place, anybody can come. And talk about the messiness and talk about the curation, because I think that those two are necessary if you're going to have an open garden versus a walled garden, that it is going to be messy because you're basically inviting everybody, but it's also curated. So I'm picturing like, Burning Man, you know, it's like, it's a, it's wildly open and yet it's very structured. So yeah, what do you, uh, like, talk and speak to that a little bit, please?

Well, of course, you know, as somebody who has did attend Burning Man once, uh, I can tell you that it's very much an open garden experience. Um, you know, the, the way that we talk about it is like, if you just let anything happen, um, What you get is a world that's very difficult to expose and surface the very best gaming experiences for people. It can also create an area where if it was just completely anybody do whatever they want, I mean, it would essentially be the internet, which does have its unsafe corners, if you will.

I love that. If you just let anybody do whatever they want, it'll be the internet.

It pretty much is. I mean, that already exists. And so, like, we don't need to tell people the value of the internet. I mean, I think that everybody has experienced the value, but they also understand the drawbacks of the internet. And even to some extent, social media, you know, people can post and do almost anything they want, but not quite. And so that's kind of what we're talking about is, is it when, like, I'll use another example besides Burning Man, you go to a national park, right? A lot of people go to national parks. You, you show up to the ranger station. They've got rules. You know, you might pay a fee to enter. You might not, you know, sometimes it's, it's just, you know, drive up and have a great time. But you go there and they say, please stay on the trails. Please don't chop trees down. You know, please don't throw your trash away. And they don't just let anyone build a store or anyone have a festival right there on the grounds, right? It's very much designed to— it serves a purpose, right? It serves a mission. And that mission is people can enjoy nature and people can have a high-quality, relatively safe, inexpensive experience in nature and one that is protected and one that perhaps you can enhance by getting private tours or going on the gondola or whatever. But like, this is— you have some reasonable expectation of safety and high quality. And that's what we mean by the open garden. Now, that what happens in nature is not controlled by us, right? Including in the national forest. Like, we can curate it. You know, we can help encourage, you know, certain things to grow. But at the same time, that's a group effort. And that's because people who go to the national park, they, they all sort of almost implicitly or maybe tacitly work together to ensure that that experience continues to be what it was intended to be.

That's an interesting concept. And there are trolls and detractors everywhere. That said, what you're talking about is that there's a level of gatekeeping that does keep it relatively safe, that does keep it high quality. that's the curation part, right?

That's correct. It's a garden. It's not just, it's not just wildlife. It's not just, it's not just Mother Nature doing whatever, whatever she wants to.

Yeah. Yeah. I, okay. This is, it's, I mean, the, what you, what you're describing is really great. Um, so how is that, how, how do you see that? Evolving from where it is to, I assume you're going to be inviting a massive amount more people into your garden space. And it's a, your garden space is a segment of the internet that is fairly wild and you're going, yeah, this space, come and play. It's safe. Right.

Yeah. I think, I think, well, the way we're approaching it is one of stewardship. The idea of this open garden concept requires cooperation amongst people with a shared vision. And we have to each kind of show up with the building blocks that we're good at, you know, the ones that we've developed, the ones that we think are important to making that a successful ecosystem. The building blocks that we're bringing on board and what keeps me very excited about the work that we're doing is that we're sort of at the intersection of AI and digital ownership. And so we're bringing advanced marketplace capabilities that support fully digital ownership and fully digital consumption patterns that we're seeing emerge, you know, where the point of purchase is now, you know, in someone's social feed or in a link that's shared rather than in a storefront, if you will. But the point of sale can still happen in a safe and and responsible platform approach. You know, you're giving your credit card information or you're buying it with Bitcoin or whatever it is, but you're doing that in a fairly secure way. Those are building blocks for this future open garden. And we're seeing it work. I mean, we have just at Mythical, FIFA Rivals is a game that is distributed by the App Store for Apple and also for Google. It's approved. Our advanced marketplace capability that leverages blockchain and some of these other advanced AI features are all sort of approved to do that. And we were the first mobile game company that was able to get that approved into those gardens. So we sort of went into their walled garden and we said, hey, look at some of these building blocks, you know, and they're open to it. Like, they were surprisingly open to it. So I do think that we're headed in that direction. And like I said, it's a pretty exciting place to be.

It is an exciting place to be. You, uh, let's back up. Let's wind back the clock a little bit. You didn't get here just one day, you go, I'm gonna start Mythical, right? It's like you, uh, you had a kind of a geeky, nerdy start of sorts, um, right?

How could you tell?

How good? It's good.

I mean, it's a guy standing in front of some lightsabers and some of my favorite science fiction captains and in science fiction.

Anyway, I love that. It's a— that is a beautiful background. I, uh, I love that a lot. So yeah, so talk to me about your— what got you interested in this. And you know, it's a beautiful blend of gaming and, um, e-commerce wasn't a thing when you first started out, not the same way it is now. So how did you How did you go from I can create things to I can create things and actually make it a business and then stay on the cutting edge?

You know, a lot of it is, I like to say, willingness to put yourself out there and to follow the things that, that are really exciting and interesting to you. That's like sort of a not, not ambition, I wouldn't say, but more like inspired inspired decision-making, if you will. But again, like, there's a lot of luck involved with just about anything that, that anyone does. You can increase your chances of luck by being prepared to receive it, that being by sort of preparing yourself to be able to take on new and exciting possibilities and opportunities, uh, by making good choices and things like that. And I, I like to explain that, at least to my children, that, um, you know, Dad dropped out of college to join Wizards of the Coast because Well, Dad was paying a lot of money to go to school and didn't quite understand what he was learning and how that was going to lead to a better life. But he needed a job to pay for that school. And Wizards was hiring. And so kind of jumped into that, which was supposed to just be a part-time job to pay for college, but never had a part-time moment. Like, I was full-time working and very much learning. And as a person who loves to approach everything with the sort of wide-eyed enthusiasm for learning. It was a wonderful opportunity over quite a few years to learn a bunch of different functions, learn how the world works, you know, in a very practical way, you know, at a startup that got acquired by a Fortune 1000 company, you know, Hasbro Bot Wizards. I stayed after that I had 9 jobs, you know, 11 bosses. I worked for almost every CEO of that company and got a chance to really explore the world and explore how gaming really emerged from an invention. You know, Wizards invented trading card games, and I got to kind of see all the opportunities that come from that, different expressions of that. And so it's sort of built into my DNA. In the first part of my career that it's absolutely important that we take a look at the successes of putting ownership into the hands of the gamers and broaden that. That's a huge opportunity. I didn't really see it in terms of a really executable or tactical experience until I joined Mythical. I didn't start Mythical. I joined Mythical as it's moving from 1 to 2 in its scaling phase. And Mythical embraces all of this. So for me, joining Mythical was like finding long-lost family and really diving into this notion that the gaming experience doesn't have to just be a $60 purchase and then play it until you're done playing it. It doesn't need to just be a subscription, which I pay every month until I'm done playing it. It could actually be much more than that. I am happy to say, though, I did go back to college. So if my kids are watching or anybody out there just thinks dropping out of school is the answer, that's not the case. I did go back to college. I went back and got an information systems computer science degree. And then I went back again and got a graduate degree in business. So did all that while working at Wizards of the Coast. But I highly encourage taking your life lessons and then applying them to your schoolwork because boy, you sure learn a lot more when you do it that way.

You definitely do. I, I was sort of giggling or chuckling at the, uh, subtext of stay in school, kids.

Yeah, I am a father.

True, right? That is true.

That's my first job.

Yeah, it's a— and that's a good job. Yeah, being a father is a good job. I, uh, was You did some time compression of, and then, you know, there were 11 CEOs and all this stuff. It's like you learned things at every step and your job roles changed along the way. Every, at every step, your duties changed, your perspective changed, um, and you as an individual changed. Right, absolutely. So can you talk about that? Like, the— as you climbed, you hit new levels of unknown territory, and your decision-making got fine-tuned. Like, you honed it so that it was— you could then see, predict, and then create the future, which is like— that's what you're doing now. So every step of the way led you to where you are now. Talk about some of those steps and some of the decision-making that you had to do.

Yeah. From a— taking a step back for a second, from a life perspective, decision-making is about— what I think it's about is keeping the sword sharp, which is one of the reasons why I love this podcast. It's important to never stop learning. It's important to see every opportunity for what it is, both a lesson in what not to do or a lesson in what to do, right? It's not just about following positive experiences. It's also about learning from failures and learning from them as fast as you can and in a way that helps you not repeat them. That's like a, you know, general— I'm a kinetic learner, so I do tend to learn through doing or failing and, you know, sort of burn your hand on the stove kind of learner. But But, but being, making sure that you stay very, very clear and crisp on learning the lesson of both success and failure seems to have, have worked for me.

Going like narrowing in a little bit more on, on career opportunities and let me pause you just for a second before we get to career because that is so key staying clear about learning the lesson is what you just said. Yeah. And was that always intentional for you as you'd come away from something? Would you go? What did I just learn from that?

Um, I think I, I would like to say it's intentional. I would. I would say it's also accidental. And, and I had to, uh, I mean, and I certainly have, have had repeated mistakes. I, I don't, uh, I don't profess to be fully successful at not making the same mistake twice, but I, uh, but it's important that you sort of realize the outcome of everything and maintain a level of introspection, which did take me time along that journey to develop. And I know I'm not done. Like, I often talk about how, you know, 10 years ago I thought I knew everything, right? And then I look back and I'm like, I knew nothing. Well, I know because of that, that in 10 years I'm going to look back and think, wow, this guy thought he had it all done, you know? And it's like, no, actually, I didn't know. Anything, right? And so recognizing that we're all sort of on this journey and that we can really try to do 10% better than we think we can at any given moment is probably the direction to go. It's not to assume that there's some kind of finish line and that someday I'm, you know, I've reached peak learning or something like that. I mean, that's a pretty scary topic if people have that kind of a view. I would much rather take the idea that every single day has a brand new lesson. Sometimes I'm paying close attention, sometimes I'm not.

That's a— that's beautiful. That is, uh, that is my language right there.

Well, it's a sword sharpening exercise, you know. If you don't keep it sharp, it just dulls over time.

It sure is. So the— yeah, and the name of this podcast, One Sharp Sword, is based on one sharp sword is so much better than a thousand dull knives, you know.

Yes.

That One. Yeah, the other, the other thing about a sharp sword is that you know you have it and you may never need to use it. You may never need to draw it just because you know you have it. It's— and that's where some of the power lies. Um, the, the ability to keep it sharp, that's, you know, part of learning. And I love that, uh, what you said— we're on this journey and try to do 10% better than we think we can— is— that's such a great motto, right? Where it's like, if you, if you were at a place— and we're all at a place, right? Whatever, whatever place we're at, you can look back and go, yeah, I didn't know it all then. Yeah. Um, and to keep in mind the perspective of, of course, in 10 years I will look back and go, oh yeah, I sure didn't know it all then. Um, that— and, and that is one of the beauties of getting older, you know, going through time and going, yeah, it's, it's great, there's so much more to learn. And part of that is that the world changes. The world is not standing still while we're getting better. The world is changing while we're changing with it and in it. And And I just, I love that almost as a challenge so that for each of us, as you listen to or watch this podcast, if you can challenge yourself to do 10% better than you think you can, that's a beautiful thing. We're going to, I mean, it's a challenge to grow even faster than the path you're on.

Yeah, that's very true. I mean, it's a theory I learned in grad school about real option choices, giving yourself a bit of a structured way of examining choices you've made before on this journey, taking in new information, and then giving yourself permission to make a better decision if you need to. In some cases, that's, oh, we're going to keep going. In other cases, no, we need to pivot. Or in other cases, it's, this has been a failure. We need to try something brand new. And that is very successful. That is something that we all should should, uh, should be proud of when we give ourselves options to make better choices.

I love that. I love that. That is, uh, that is so potent, right? That sometimes it's like, well, I'm not a quitter, so I'm going to stay in it. It's, well, you, you know, if your GPS said that this was the road you needed to be on and you've come across this washed-out gully and that road doesn't actually exist, are you going to drive through just because the GPS says that's the direction? Um, you take in new information and you choose, right? So based on the— you choose anew, right? You choose, do I keep going, do I pivot, do I go back? I love that.

Well, there's— I learned in school a long time ago, actually this is my undergrad, uh, program, um, it was a psychology class, um, uh, and there was this, uh, topic that came up that has stuck with me for a long time called the Abilene Paradox.

Oh yeah.

And you, you're probably familiar with it.

Oh yeah, yeah.

It's about a family from Abilene who, uh, probably shouldn't have went to get ice cream that day. Yeah.

So for those that don't know, it's, uh, they were, uh, they were not in Abilene. They were uh, in a, in a town just up the road, about 40 miles. And it's a story about, um, implied agreement, right? So, oh, I went along because I thought that's what you wanted. And really, it's, uh, it's about what happens when you don't communicate what you truly want for yourself. Yeah, uh, you end up going along to get along, and everybody ends up in this place that nobody wanted to be. So that's a— that, yeah, The Aveline Paradox is a, is a beautiful, uh, old film that's probably out on the internet somewhere that you can watch. Um, it's interesting. It's interesting.

Yeah, it is.

Being intentional is really important, and being able to communicate is really important. Let's talk about your career because we started to talk about decision-making and decision-making outside of that decision-making along your path is where you started to talk to before I interrupted you to highlight some of the golden nuggets you were dropping.

I don't know if they're golden, but I certainly like them. I'll say, yeah, I mean, from a career standpoint, you asked me, you know, what have you changed? Like, have you honed this decision-making process? And I'd say inside of my career decisions, absolutely. It's about, you know, in some ways ensuring that I learned the Abilene paradox lesson, right? Which is along the journey, we do have to examine what we find to be the most meaningful to us and make decisions along those lines and that that can change. I mean, I think Anyone entering the workforce, entering college, and then going into the workforce, like these are all moments where you take a snapshot of what, what you think you want right now and what you think you're going to want. And then you sort of use that as a guiding principle. But that can change over time. That can change from job to job. That can change while you're in a job. And it certainly changed for me in my career. I spent a great deal of time, like I said, at Hasbro after, after they acquired Wizards. I learned a lot. I learned about things I like to do. I learned about things I didn't like to do. And at one point, I decided that it's going to be much— I want to follow my dreams a little bit more. And one of the options that I had been considering for quite some time was to fully understand the Battle.net game publishing platform. Because as a lifelong gamer, I spent— I won't explain exactly how much time this was, but I spent a considerable amount of time playing a game called StarCraft back in the late '90s and early 2000s with some of my best friends in life. And we used the Battle.net platform to play that game across long distances. Yes, we did have the LAN parties and stuff like that. That was all part of the geekdom back then. But at some point, your lives change. And you can't always meet up with your computer in the trunk of your car like you do— it's easier to just play from my house. And the Battle.net platform that Blizzard had created it facilitated that. And it created a brand-new way of meeting people, but also of enjoying gaming experiences with the friends and family that you love. That has always been— has always held a professional and personal endearment inside my heart. And I had an opportunity to join Blizzard and to run the Battle.net platform. I couldn't pass it up. And so when you ask about decision-making criteria, love Hasbro and Wizards, like amazing teams, amazing products. But, you know, like there's this other love I have too, and I want to take a chance and I want to, I want to explore that. I'm deeply curious. And, and so I made that jump. And again, like I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I mean, the, the teams that we had, we had a team in my group is about 225, 230 people. More than a dozen engineering teams, product designers, product managers, engineers, DevOps, LiveOps, data platform. It was an all-up technology platform. We managed to bring in some of the very best game IPs onto that platform, like the Call of Duty franchise, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, of course, my favorite StarCraft, and it does billions of dollars a year in many countries. So it was such an amazing opportunity to see a top, uh, business in the world and how it functions, and to be responsible for modernizing it, be responsible for, uh, helping develop the culture for that experience, uh, you know, in terms of the employees and the staff and the teams, you know, and to enjoy the fact that hundreds of millions of players are using it every month. I mean, there's a real sense of pride and, uh, and accomplishment that you get from doing things like that. So it's very meaningful work. You know, as I continued doing that dream job, I discovered, like I said, some really amazing leaders, one of which had left and went to work at Facebook at the time, but which, you know, of course turned into Meta. And I realized that, you know, he called me and he's like, hey, you know, I think I could use your help on something, you know, on a project. And that's at a point where I realized that, you know, what I really want out of life is meaningful work, which of course, I think a lot of people want. But I also want to work with great people. And the people at Blizzard were fantastic. My team, in particular, my first team, shout out to them because they were amazing, probably one of the best I've ever worked with. But I also liked that it's not often you get to go do meaningful work and pick your boss, right? And so, oh, I really liked working for this guy. So I'm like— and he's like, this is human history's largest social platform ever. Like, it's got billions of users every day. Coming to the, coming to the ecosystem. And he goes, let's figure, let's see if we can help them understand games. And I was like, all right, you got me something, right? So, so that's the, that was the reason to jump to Meta, um, and to work in the Quest ecosystem and to work with hundreds, if not maybe even close to 1,000 game developers, uh, that I got to meet from around the world, um, to try to help explain maybe the best way that we could innovate the gaming experience on these social platforms. So, you know, we used to call them the Facebook family of apps, but Eventually, it became Meta, and you're talking about surface area for gaming that includes Facebook app, the Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, the Quest headsets, that whole ecosystem. And so, yeah, I had to do that. So like I said, I could not have— I mean, being inside of Meta was also an amazing experience. I talk about these things in real positive tones. Yes, it's work. Yes, there are challenges. Yes, you meet people sometimes you don't want to work with. Those kinds of things all exist. I'm not trying to gloss over that, but I am trying to highlight the driving factor for why I made the decisions I made. Not saying they were all perfect, but definitely felt like in the moment, felt and thought like these are the criteria by which I make these big decisions. Like I'm leaving something great behind in each case. At Wizards, you know, at Blizzard, and even at Meta. Um, you know, when I joined, when I joined Mythical, it's because, you know, I felt like not only did, did I start to have a real impact over at Meta, but, uh, but John Linden, the CEO and founder of Mythical, he, he and I have been talking a few times over the years. We meet up at industry events and things like that, and he, and he's like, well, we really ought to do this together. And the more I talked with him about his vision for this next version of the internet and these building blocks, it seems like, and I know it might sound crazy, but I could have an even bigger impact at a much, much smaller company building these transformative building blocks, these pieces of technology that could literally reshape our industry. And that was a big draw. Plus, you know, anyone who knows John knows that he is absolutely a visionary. I like to say he He perpetually lives 20 minutes into the future, you know. And so, what he really needed was a partner that can help him bring that vision into, you know, practical execution. And I find that to be very meaningful. And I find the people at Mythical to be top-notch, including John's inspirational leadership to be, you know, the good people, right? So, meaningful work and good people. And here I am talking to you about it.

This is amazing. I just want to tease out some of the beautiful things that you said. You didn't say it this way, and what I got was that your curiosity met creative expression.

Yeah, that was— that's a good summarization of my giant word salad. The—

the— it's almost like you were compelled, like, and that's the whole thing. The reason I wanted to call it that, that it really is— it is the— a beautiful blend of curiosity. Like, if you can stay curious, then you have taken the blinders off You know, you were looking at what is possible versus a judgment. You know, the opposite of curiosity is just judging something and letting it go because you've judged it as something instead of, I'm curious, I'm, I'm, I want to explore it. And then creative expression, which is now that I've explored it, something must come out of me. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. And then You know, obviously you have talent in, in synthesis. You're able to see things. You're able to see the vision that other people bring and you go, yeah, and this is how I'm going to bring that out of me. And you, you turn it into practical application, which I think is, is both brilliant and inspiring and exciting. You know, it's— that's more than— both means two, so three. So it's all those three things combined.

Well, thank you, thank you. But I, I will say very humbly, uh, it does look a lot like chaos sometimes.

So, uh, so what's wrong with chaos? You know, the— from chaos comes order, and from chaos— I mean, that's what creativity looks like almost all the time, is it looks like chaos from the outside. Isn't that what it looks like? It's like, yeah, right? So even hindsight—

I often say hindsight is the only thing that puts structure around it, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm, uh, I've got this, like, it's funny because on my desk I've got this manuscript for a book that I'm working on called Dancing with Chaos, and it's all about that. It's a management, uh, training guide that I'm writing currently and should be released this year. And, uh, I can't wait to read it. Thank you. It's actually the first time I've talked about it publicly, so you're hearing it here first on this podcast.

Oh, so I can't sign up yet on Audible?

You will, you definitely will. Um, but that's the whole thing, is like, chaos is so much a part of, of our lives that I think we need to embrace it. You know, where else is creative thought going to turn into practical application? Yeah, it needs to be slightly messy. So I love that. I also am appreciative of how you run teams, that it's, you know, you have teams, you know, very often creative teams are 6 people to a dozen people to maybe 30. And you've had creative teams of up to 1,000 developers at a time that you're overseeing, which is, that's pretty incredible as well. So I just, I wanted to applaud that all the way through.

Well, I've earned the gray hair in my beard, maybe.

That's definitely a thing.

Yes, it can be. But, you know, like I said, if the work is meaningful and the people are great and the team culture is great, it is a wonderful thing to be involved in a project, no matter how hard it is.

So, I mean, now you're also speaking my language too. This is, that is the area that I, just so appreciate, right? That what is it that people want? They want meaningful work. They want to be acknowledged for meaningful work. And they want to know that there's hope for doing more. And if you can do those three for yourself and for other people, you've created psychological safety. Like, that is really where it comes from is tell me that what I'm doing matters. Tell me you see me and, um, tell me there's more. Like, there's— right. And, and you've been doing that for yourself all the way along, going, wow, this is like— I'm making an impact. How incredible. Yeah. And what a, what a great way to wake up every day. Like, you don't always love— I, I— one of the examples that I use is you don't always love having the puppy to clean up after, but you love the puppy. And right, so along with the puppy is what the puppy deposits that you gotta pick up. So, you know, nobody wakes up and goes, yay, dog poo. But you do wake up and you go, wow, what a, you know, how much joy is there in what I get to explore and create? That's awesome. Meaningful work, good people, great culture. That's magical. Maybe it is, maybe even mythical.

It's definitely mythical. And I will say that it's definitely work. I mean, you can't— it doesn't just happen magically.

Yeah, so talk about that a little bit. I'm paying attention to our time. We have a few minutes left. I would love to hear how you— like, what's your intentionality around how you create the culture you've created where you can say, wow, it really is a good culture.

Well, I think it's a combination of a few things. First, it's, you know, making sure as a leader and a manager, which I do view as somewhat different roles.

They are different roles.

Yes. They overlap at times, which can cause people to think they're the same, but they're not. And you do need to have tools in your toolbox for each. And they're different jobs, so they have different tools. It's very important to establish accountability. It's very like— and I don't just mean who's, you know, who else is accountable for the things that, you know, that you've asked them to do. I, I mean my accountability as a leader and as a manager. I mean, that is central to, I think, establishing that psychological safety, which gets the most out of, out of teams and cultures. Um, and one way that I found that this works very well, especially when, when you're in highly creative situations or you're in situations where you're trying to innovate and it's very challenging. Like a lot of these innovation curves are very steep for the teams trying to climb them, right? And one of the ways to do that is through a tribal leadership type model. And this is one that, I mean, you bend and flex a little bit in terms of the definition of what tribal leadership means, but it's about establishing the notion that the people around you are those that you're first and foremost accountable to. We, like, in some of my teams, we've called that the first team, like the team I'm first accountable to before I'm accountable to whatever my responsibilities are to the rest of the organization, right? And our problems are shared. It doesn't mean we have shared accountability for solving them, but we intellectually, we all own these challenges. And so us understanding and building a shared context around that tribe helps us move fast, it helps us move deliberately, it helps us learn quickly, which is incredibly important if you're trying to manage or change a culture or you're trying to climb a very, very steep hill. The learning speed of the organization tends to be highly correlated to its success. And establishing that type of a culture through tribal leadership seems to work quite often. It's not a silver bullet. It certainly needs to be molded to the situation. But I have found that by working together with this team spirit, making tough calls when necessary, but most of the time trying to build that shared context, decisions become much easier.

Well, when everybody's on the same page about the vision, then it stops being about any individual.

That's right.

Right?

And I don't mean that being on the same page means agreeing with everything. That's a key differentiator. There are times where I disagree and commit. And I think that's an important element of being on the same page.

You want that actually. You want to be able to say, "I disagree," or to have other people show their dissent as well. But in a— it's about working agreements. How do we choose to show up to disagree with each other? How do we choose to show up to support each other. This is amazing. This is really good. We, uh, we should probably wrap. Let me ask you this then. If people are interested in finding out more about Mythical, more about you, uh, want to reach out to you, um, more about the, the FIFA stuff you're into, like, how do they find you and/or more about you know, the stuff you're, you're into, the things you're into.

Yeah, uh, you know, feel free to navigate over to LinkedIn. I'm, I'm linkedin.com/in/aaron, A-R-R-O-N. Uh, I, you know, also, um, you know, you can go to the Mythical website, mythical.games. Uh, you can find me on that as well. Uh, but yeah, I love talking about this. Um, I do travel, uh, quite a bit, uh, and do some speaking, uh, on these topics, topics especially about digital transformation and you know, all the, all the, you know, the, the most recent or contemporary, uh, hype cycles that we're currently in with AI or— yeah, you know, things like that.

So, and everything's changing so fast.

Yeah, I have lots of opinions, of course.

I'll bet you do. We barely scratched the surface. I'm so glad to be able to talk with you, uh, even though it's brief. I'm just so glad to be able to connect and talk with you. It's, it's so good.

Yeah, this has been great.

It has been great. Aaron, thank you. My guest, I'm going to spell your name, okay? So that when people look for you on LinkedIn, they really can find you. Aaron Gouldsby, A-R-R-O-N Gouldsby, G-O-O-L-S-B-E-Y.

That's correct.

That is correct. Aaron Gouldsby, you can find him on LinkedIn. You can go to mythical.games and find him. Um, so much more to come out of you and out of the, the company. I, uh, I look forward to it. Again, thanks for being here.

Yeah, thank you.

Alrighty, this is One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm your host, Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, your coach on this journey. We'll see you here Next time. Thanks for being here today.

Thanks for listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer Dr. Wayne Pernell. For more information, please go to onesharpsword.com.